


In All Of The Stars

by Tea Party on Ice (A_Conscious_Dreamer)



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Fluff and Angst, Guilty Shiro, Hanahaki Disease, Happy Ending, I hate angst so it's probably not that angst tbh, Keith (Voltron) Angst, Keith (Voltron) is a Mess, M/M, Memory Loss, Mutual Pining, Pining Shiro (Voltron), Soulmates, hanahaki disease au, worried shiro
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-19
Updated: 2017-09-19
Packaged: 2018-12-31 15:11:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,568
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12135174
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/A_Conscious_Dreamer/pseuds/Tea%20Party%20on%20Ice
Summary: Shiro liked to downplay his memory loss for the other members of the team, but Keith knew better. He knew because there was one significant thing Shiro had forgotten—his soulmate bond with Keith.Keith could live through that (maybe) but the Hanahaki Disease, however (the rare result of a neglected soul bond) would be a little more difficult.





	In All Of The Stars

**Author's Note:**

> I've been writing this for weeks. It was supposed to be a short little piece I wrote during the week for a nice weekend update but I can never do anything quickly or make it short so here you go--a few thousand words of boys being dumb and emotional. 
> 
> Sam Smith’s ‘Too Good At Goodbyes’ was released while I was in the middle of writing this. I admit it probably influenced Keith’s thoughts a little here and there. It’s a heartbreaking song that I probably relate to just a little bit too much. But don’t worry, this story has a happy ending. I wouldn’t be me if it didn’t.

Keith’s soul mark, an unknown constellation of stars, burned on the skin over his heart like an aching brand as Shiro laughed with Pidge across the table. Keith’s seat gave him a direct line of view to the Black Paladin as he ate—an unintentional accident that had him catching his breath through the pain and gritting his teeth.

Glaring down at his meal—another interesting Corran creation—Keith mashed it into pieces with his spoon and rode out the pain. _He doesn’t remember_ , he told the stupid aching bond viciously, _and now’s definitely not the time to be focusing on relationship issues._

The bond gave one last painful tug as if in defiance before fading to the background once more. Keith glanced up to see Shiro still engaging obliviously with the others, unaware of the longing aching through his being and clogging his throat. Apparently, it was only Keith feeling the loss of their closeness, Shiro’s awareness of their bond stolen along with his memory.

 _I’ll make them pay for what they did to Shiro._ They had stolen his arm, his memory and the childlike innocence he’d once possessed, and then frayed their soul bond until Keith was the only one able to feel it. He doubted there was anything the Galra Empire could do that would change how he felt about Shiro, but soul bonds didn’t equal love.

Would the Shiro in the present even want to be with Keith? _After everything he’s been through, would he still even want to know? Has he just forgotten his feelings or…does he not love me anymore?_ He had just gotten Shiro back—he couldn’t go and risk losing him again.

Keith was jolted from his thoughts as his lungs burned, each inhale and exhale scratching his throat. His spoon dropped with a loud clatter that had everyone’s attention on him as he hunched over, hand clutched to his chest, eyes squeezing shut against the pain.

“Keith, what’s wrong?” Pidge called out in concern as she paused her attempts at fending off Lance’s efforts to get to her food.

A large hand on his shoulder as Hunk leaned closer. “You alright, man? It wasn’t the food, was it?”

He went to respond— _I’m fine_ —but found himself coughing instead, large dry heaves that irritated his throat further and made his breathing stutter and gasp. Swallowing heavily as they died down, he opened his eyes to reassure everyone but froze in horror instead.

Scattered on his lap, on the table, the floor, and gathered on top of his meal like garnish were petals of a deep, deep red—Keith’s favourite colour, the colour of passion…and of death.

His death.

 

* * *

 

“Keith. Keith, open the door.”

Keith pulled his pillow over his head, ignoring Shiro. He was the last person Keith wanted to see right now—it would only make his condition worse. As if to prove it, three petals fell to the bed as he coughed into the space between the mattress and the pillow.

“Keith, I can hear you coughing. You need to let Pidge and Corran take a look at you.”

Keith groaned and turned onto his back, pulling the pillow down. “Corran doesn’t even know what Hanahaki is and Pidge’s speciality is technology, not humans. Just leave me be, Shiro. There’s nothing anyone can do, anyway.”

A brief silence, then, quieter, “If we do nothing, you’ll die. Please, just…open the door.”

Keith didn’t want to, but the entire reason he was in this situation was because he loved Shiro, and how could he deny the man he loved anything when he sounded two seconds away from begging on his knees.

Pushing himself to his feet with a sigh, Keith shuffled through the petals on his floor, the result of a full day shut inside pacing and moping and raging against the universe and basically doing everything shy of clinging off of Shiro constantly--which would only aggravate his condition and fill the space with the petals even further than he already had.

The door swished open to reveal Shiro standing on the other side looking both surprised and relieved. He looked about as well as Keith himself did—tired and bloodshot eyes, un-brushed hair and noticeably un-showered.

_And I thought I looked miserable._

“The only way,” Keith started, moving aside even as he got his argument in before Shiro could attempt to sway him, “to cure me is to remove the flowers from my lungs forcibly, and that means giving up my feelings and breaking the soulmate bond. It’s not an option.”

Shiro stood awkwardly in the middle of the room, staring at Keith helplessly with sad grey eyes that cut to Keith’s soul and had him swallowing down petals. It’s not like they could hurt him any more than they already were.

“So mending the bond with your soul mate isn’t an option, then? Are they back on Earth? Because, Keith, you know we’ll go back if it means saving your life.”

Keith felt vaguely like he wanted to laugh—hysterical laugher at the complete irony of the situation. _My soulmate is right here, but he may as well be on the other side of space._

Instead, he sighed, taking the only out he could think of to avoid answering that particular question. “Let’s go see Pidge and Corran.”

 

* * *

 

“…and your souls are connected? To the level that you can actually die without them? From this flower disease?” Corran leaned in close, eyes wide and inappropriately excited considering the situation.

 _Is he trying to see down into my lungs_? Keith thought with irritation, leaning as far back as he could in his chair—he’d been shoved there by a very concerned Pidge as soon as he and Shiro had entered her lab before she shot across to the other side with a deep frown creasing her eyebrows. She hadn’t met his eyes once.

Shiro pulled Corran back, glowering at him with disapproval. “He’s not an experiment, he’s sick.”

Corran cleared his throat and smoothed his expression. “Yes, I apologise. You’re right. I’m sorry, Keith, I’m supposed to be helping, not making you feel worse.”

Keith shrugged and frowned down at his lap, wondering how soon he could get out of here. It wasn’t that he didn’t want to be cured, but as advanced as the alien technology was, he highly doubted it could cure a disease it had never heard of—at least not without taking away the soul bond as well, and that just wasn’t an option.

“Okay,” Pidge interrupted, pushing past the two men to stand in front of Keith, holding out a small square device. “Hold still, Keith. I’m going to scan your lungs to see how far along the disease is.” After a few seconds, the device beeped and Pidge frowned down at it before disappearing back across the room.

“Well, that’s a bad sign,” Keith muttered, hacking up another couple of petals that he put in the small bowl filled with others for Pidge to analyse. He didn’t know what she thought she was going to get from petals, but it wasn’t like he had much room for argument.

Shiro frowned in worry, arms crossed across his chest as his eyes followed the petals into the bowl. “Pidge, tell me you have something.”

“Give me a _minute_ , Shiro,” Pidge grunted, not looking away from where she had the device connected to a screen.

Corran cleared his throat and grabbed the bowl from Keith’s side, shuffling away from the other two. “Well, then. I’ll just go over there to take a look at these.”

And then Keith was left alone with Shiro. Another cough rattled through him and Keith let the petals fall to his lap. He’d already left petals scattered in various rooms of the castle already, what was a few more?

“Keith,” Shiro murmured, placing a hand lightly on his shoulder, “are you sure you don’t want to go back to Earth? You know Allura won’t say no.”

Swallowing down another cough, Keith resisted the urge to throw the hand off his shoulder and instead took a rare moment to enjoy the touch. “Just let it go, Shiro,” he replied on a sigh.

A moment of silence before, tentatively, “Is it one of the other Paladins?”

He couldn’t hold back his snort. “What, like Lance? Or Hunk?”

Shiro’s eyes flickered to Pidge.

Keith rolled his eyes, a shot of fresh pain hitting him as he was reminded just how little Shiro remembered about him—about them. “I’m gay, Shiro. Pidge isn’t exactly an option.”

A small clatter from Pidge’s workstation drew their attention. Pidge flushed and turned her stool so her back was facing them entirely. “Don’t mind me, totally not eavesdropping. Continue on.”

“How am I supposed to help you if you won’t let me?” Shiro let his hand drop away and Keith had to look away from his sad, scared eyes.

There was really nothing he could say to that. If he just told Shiro everything…but then he’d risk Shiro being with him purely to save his life, risk letting Shiro back in only to lose him all over again and that would be a death even more painful than the Hanahaki.

The silence stretched until Pidge spun back around, a careful expression on her face as she bit her lip, looking over at the both of them.

“Pidge?” Shiro prompted, impatience making his tone a little rough.

“The Hanahaki is obviously in its early stages, which isn’t a surprise, but it's developing rather rapidly. It’s difficult to predict just how rapidly—for that, I’ll need more scans over a period of intervals. But,” she paused, swallowing, “I wouldn’t assume you have too long before you have to make a decision on what to do.”

Keith stood and sped from the room, ignoring the tightness in his lungs and tickling in his throat. He just couldn’t face them, or anyone, right now, not knowing that they’d want an explanation, want to fix him as soon as possible no matter what they had to do. Keith wasn’t used to having people care for him that much—Shiro had been the first and the man in question barely even remembered their past beyond the beginning friendship.

He’d deflect their questions later—right now, he really just wanted to be alone to agonise his situation—which was worse, dying or having Shiro again only for the older to realise he didn’t feel the same as he did before and leaving Keith all over again?

 

* * *

 

Princess Allura was talking, filling them in on the mission they were about to embark on—something about a supposedly uninhabited planet with a Galra ship hanging around—but Keith couldn’t concentrate. It was taking all he had just to stay steady on his feet without swaying and letting on to the others that just _perhaps_ he wasn’t well enough to be going on _any_ missions.

The air felt thin, but he knew the problem wasn’t with the air but with how little he could inhale at once. The Hanahaki was bad, very bad. Most likely it was entering the later stages--if it wasn't there already. There’d been a spot of blood on his palm this morning, but since it seemed to be an isolated incident so far, he hadn’t told the others yet.

It wasn’t as if they could form Voltron without him. They needed him on this mission if there was any chance they’d be confronting a Galra ship. _I’ll tell them later_ , he thought to himself. _Maybe Pidge and Corran have figured out something new by now._

“—Keith? Did you get that?”

He blinked and forced his attention to the room. Everyone was staring at him with various expressions of worry. Obviously, he’d failed to answer something or other.

“What?” He brought a hand up to steady himself, suddenly aware of how dizzy he was. “I’m fine. Sorry, can repeat that?”

“Maybe you should sit this one out?” Hunk said warily from his right, half reaching out with the urge to steady him.

Lance stepped forward. “Yeah,” he said with obvious false cheer, “you look terrible, man.”

Keith frowned at him. “I looked in a mirror this morning, thanks.”

Allura cleared her throat. “Well, in any case, I’m sure the others can handle this without you for now. It’s only a little scouting—you can always head out later if they need you.”

“No.” Keith shook his head, ignoring how it made the dizzyness worse. “There’s a ship up there. By the time they need me they’d already be in trouble. It’s safer and quicker if I just go down to the planet with everyone else.”

“Keith—” Pidge started.

Shiro stepped up to his side, laying a hand on his shoulder, dark eyebrows drawn together in deep concern. “You can stay back and be the lookout. No combat unless you absolutely have to.” It wasn’t a suggestion.

Keith sighed, hating how weak he was. “Yes, sir.”

A cough, immediately followed by a handful of petals. Keith had to force back and swallow down the litany of them that wanted to follow.

 

* * *

 

It had been barely a week and Shiro was moving quickly from worried to absolutely terrified.

They were mid-mission but all Shiro could think about was how Keith had looked as they’d all left for their separate lions half an hour earlier. He’d lost his colour and the bags under his eyes stood in stark contrast against the pallor of his skin. Lately, there were enough petals littering the castle to create a small flowerbed, no matter how hard Keith attempted to hide them, and this morning, he’d sworn he’d seen Keith’s hands shaking at breakfast.

A cough echoed over the coms and Shiro’s heart clenched painfully, tension in his chest tightening all the way to his throat. “Keith, you okay?” he whispered, ducking behind a rock outcropping and keeping his eyes on the small group of Galra he was tracking—there was no way his lion could fit through the maze of rocky valley’s and they needed to figure out what the Galra were doing on what was a seemingly abandoned planet before they kicked them off of it.

From where he was on standby with the lions in case any of them needed big help very quickly, Keith grunted. “I’m fine, just focus on the mission.”

 _His voice his raspy,_ Shiro noted with worry. _Better wrap this up quickly._

“Hey guys,” Lance murmured, “these guys have just stopped here. They’ve been standing around for at least a minute doing absolutely nothing. It’s starting to creep me out.”

“Same here,” Hunk chimed in.

“Mine are still moving.” Pidge.

Shiro carefully climbed over a small pile of rocks, watching carefully to see if the Galra heard him. “That’s strange. Give it another few minutes and then head back. The last thing we want is to get caught or fall into a trap. Pidge and I will head back if you do and we can reconvene from there.”

It was then that Keith started to cough again, but unlike the other times, these ones didn’t stop and Keith was soon gasping for air, unable to fill his lungs enough before he was forced to expel them again.

“Keith!” he shouted, forgetting where he was and who he was following. He turned, already on his way to retreating and running back to the lions to check on Keith, to make sure he was okay and perhaps lock him in the castle until they could force him to tell them who his soul mate was and how they could fix this. He should never have let him come on this mission in the first place.

_I can’t lose him. I can’t._

Behind him, the Galra shouted out what sounded like an alarm, but Shiro was already too far away to hear exactly what they were saying. Over the coms, Pidge, Lance and Hunk all started talking at once.

“Shit—they’re moving—”

“—retreating! So retreating—”

“—taking fire! Shiro, I’m falling back!”

“Everyone!” he yelled, silencing the other three as Keith continued coughing. “Calm down and meet back at the lions. Something’s wrong with Keith and that takes first priority—”

The coughing cut off.

Shiro held his breath for a moment. “Keith?”

No answer. Fear gripped Shiro in its claws, cutting deep.

“Keith? What’s going on?” Pidge, panted, voice edged with the shrillness of panic.

“Come on, now’s not the time to be playing games,” Lance said, wariness in his tone belaying the joking manner of his words.

But Keith didn’t answer.

 

* * *

 

Shiro watched as Pidge and Corran fretted around Keith, scanning him with instruments, taking blood, and calling out panicked questions and answers to each other about Keith’s condition—he was breathing slow and light, heart rate was low but steady, brain function was normal but he was completely unconscious and he wouldn’t wake up.

Shiro already knew there was little they could do without attempting to stick him in one of the pods and hope it would be able to heal a disease unknown to Altean medicine or technology. But still, that would break Keith’s soul bond and Shiro just couldn't do that against Keith’s will. Even on Earth that was against the law.

Keith had made it very clear that under no circumstances did he want his soul bond to be broken. It killed Shiro, but the last thing he was going to do was betray Keith.

“Shiro,” Pidge called, whizzing back to Keith holding a mismatched piece of technology—probably a new scanner she’d put together herself. “Come help me get his shirt off. I want to scan his soul mark. This device _should_ be able to get a tentative read on the state of his soul bond.”

Shiro hurried to comply, holding Keith up from behind while Pidge removed the shirt without even so much as a blush or second glance. By the time he was laying Keith back down again, Pidge was already in the process of scanning the mark.

A mark made up of a star cluster—Shiro blinked down at it, blood rushing through his ears, heart pounding and head spinning. He recognised it, would be able to recognise it anywhere because it was _his_ soul mark. _His_.

He watched, disconnected, as his hand reached out to trace the stars on Keith’s chest, feeling the warmth of his skin with his own fingers. _It was real._

Which meant—

“Shiro?”

His eyes flickered to Pidge, seeing her confusion and concern without really processing it. “That’s my mark,” he whispered, to her, himself, and the universe, like saying it aloud would make all this real. _That’s my mark. That’s my mark._

Pidge blinked back at him for a solid minute, the device held loosely in her hand, forgotten as it beeped its results.

Across the room where he’d been analysing Keith’s blood sample, Corran jumped to his feet in excitement. “Well, that’s great! That means you can make him better, right?”

Pidge’s mouth opened and closed for a few moments before she frowned. “I don’t think it’s that simple. I mean, in theory, yes, but it’s strange.” She looked down at the results on the device. “The soul bond is stretched thin, thin enough that it’s reflecting an un-activated bond, but an un-activated bond contradicts him having Hanahaki in the first place. Shiro,” she said, looking up at Shiro with resolve, “show me your soul mark.”

Shiro removed his shirt without question or argument and let Pidge scan his mark, all the while staring at its mirror image on the still unconscious Keith. Why hadn’t Keith told him? How could he ever think that Shiro wouldn’t want to be his soulmate? Shiro had been falling for Keith well into their Garrison days—even when he was supposed to be mentoring the promising pilot cadet (aka, attempting to get rid of his behavioural issues).

Shiro didn’t know what to think, but he couldn’t help feeling a little hurt. Would Keith rather die than open himself up to Shiro?

“Your soul bond is the same as Keith’s. Exactly the same, fluctuation to fluctuation. Usually, I’d assume it’s thinness is because it’s un-activated, but…” Pidge shifted, turning to pace the length of the room as she tapped the soul reading device against her cheek.

Shiro shifted in unease, a heavy sense of foreboding weighing on his chest. “But what?”

“Hanahaki Disease is a result of a soul bond that’s been  _activated_. Activated and then neglected—like two soulmates who break up, for example. A person who has Hanahaki believes that their soulmate doesn’t return or no longer returns their feelings. I mean Keith couldn’t have known he would get Hanahaki—the chances are _astronomically_ low.”

“ _Pidge_ , I know all this already."

Pidge squared her shoulders, stopped her pacing and turned to face him head-on. “But, Shiro, I mean, what I’m trying to say is…it means you and Keith had to have, at some point, both known that you’re soulmates. There’s no way he’d get Hanahaki otherwise. A soulmate bond just can’t be rejected or strained if it hasn’t been activated on both sides.”

And there it was, Shiro’s horrible fears confirmed. He could understand the rest himself, even without Pidge pointing it out for him. “It means that I knew Keith was my soulmate and I forgot.”

Kerberos. The Galra. His lost memories. He looked at Keith lying unconscious and pale on the bed. _What have I done?_

Pidge bit her lip and then sighed like she didn’t really want to continue. “Not just that. It means you’ve blocked yourself off from the bond. It’s still there, but for some reason, you don’t consciously feel it anymore. If you did, you’d have known Keith was your soulmate without having to see the mark. He’d just be…there. All the time. That’s how soul bonds work.”

Shiro pressed the heels of his hands into his eyes, warding off the overload of emotion that wanted to escape. “That’s why he didn’t say anything. He didn’t just _think_ I rejected him—I _did_ reject him.”

 

* * *

 

_It had been two weeks since Keith had collapsed in the desert, two weeks since an excruciating pain had scorched through his right arm and caused him to scream and pass out mid-journey._

_Two weeks since Shiro, somwhere in space where Keith couldn’t do anything to help him, had lost his arm._

_He’d been feeling it since then—the bond slowly weakening, neither pushing nor pulling but instead gradually slipping like melting water through his fingers as it lost its consistency. He’d tried screaming profanities and pleases to the desert, hoping they were getting through to Shiro. He had given this bond more meaning and he was holding onto it more tightly than he had anything in his entire life. He couldn't lose it, lose his connection to Shiro, now._

_Shiro was all Keith had left and Keith was the only connection Shiro had back to Earth, to home. Keith knew he was in pain, felt every painful, desperate, terrifying, angry and lonely moment Shiro lived—wherever he was. Knew something bad was happening to him while Keith sat in his desert shack helpless to do anything besides research mystic psychic calls and strange cave drawings._

_Even while Shiro was going through that hell, even though he needed their soul bond now more than ever, even though Keith wanted nothing more than to be able to go through this with his soulmate, to be there and feel every emotion and every physical wound with him, stupid, stupid Shiro was still trying to protect him, was still willing to hurt them both and pull away just so Keith would never have to feel the kind of pain ever again._

**_Please, Shiro, please don’t—I need you, I want to be there for you! Please—_ **

_—And then he could breathe again, a connection flowing free like a faucet and blazing through him, filling him with a warmth so long absent he had forgotten just how warm, how easy and fulfilling it was. A rush of emotion on the other end, sorrow, fear, guilt, desperation and many others, too numerous for him to keep track of and—_

**_This wasn’t how this dream went. This wasn’t how he’d lived it._ **

  

Keith’s mind broke free from the dream-memory with a start, but his body took a few seconds to catch up, eyelids fighting against the pull of further sleep, lured by the pain in his body and the exhaustion coursing through him. Blinking against the harshness of the lights, he was forced to close his eyes again until they could properly adjust. The silence of almost inaudible mechanics and soft breathing at the end of the bed were the only sounds breaking up the now familiar silence of space—he was in the castle then.

Blinking his mostly adjusted eyes open, he saw the roof of a room much larger than his bedroom. He was lying on a bed and covered with a sheet to keep him warm. At the end of the bed was the source of the breathing—Shiro, fast asleep and resting his head and arms on top of the sheet by Keith’s legs.

 _He’s having a nightmare_ , Keith thought absently, noting the regret, fear and distress seeping through to him—then inhaled sharply (absent-mindedly noting how clear his airways were) because it was _right there_  as if it had never been gone: the soul bond. Keith’s bond to Shiro blazed bright, clear and strong, stretched open wider than it ever had been, even back in the Garrison when they’d first enjoyed exploring their bond.

 _He’s overcompensating_ , he thought mindlessly, too busy drowning in the long missed connection to over-think it too much—at least for the time being. _And I can breathe properly again, which means my Hanahaki is gone too—not just gone, cured._

Which meant—had Shiro found out? Or did he remember? Keith honestly wasn’t sure which he preferred. But the existence of the bond, the complete openness he could feel from Shiro through it…the affection _for Keith_ he could feel through it…he had to swallow heavily to ward off the stinging behind his eyes.

He’d be damned if he cried here and now. Not after everything. Not when he still hadn’t heard what Shiro had to say about all this.

Shiro must have felt the change through the bond because it wasn’t even a minute after Keith had woken that Shiro was stirring, brow furrowing before his eyes blinked open, saw Keith staring at him and sat up abruptly.

“Keith! You’re awake.” Shiro breathed a sigh of relief, moving his hand up the bed to gently squeeze Keith’s forearm. “Do you feel okay? Pidge said the Hanahaki cleared up on its own and that you should be fine without a pod, but I can get her if you don’t feel well—”

“I’m fine, Shiro. I can breathe fine, I swear.” Keith shifted his eyes down to the bed, glancing awkwardly where Shiro still had his hand on his arm. He didn’t quite know what to say, didn’t know where to start or where he even wanted to start. Should he apologise for keeping it a secret even when he’d almost died? Was Shiro angry? (He couldn’t _feel_ any anger from Shiro currently, but…) Had Keith completely screwed the mission and gotten someone hurt? Or captured? Or maybe he should start with the question he had wanted the answer to the longest… _why_ had Shiro forgotten in the first place? Was it because he didn’t want to remember him? Did he even remember at all now, even though he’d obviously renewed the soul bond?

Shiro’s hand moved down to Keith own, warm and solid and reassuring. “I can feel you worrying. Just talk to me. Don’t keep it all to yourself, not anymore. I know it’s my fault this mess started in the first place, but I want you to feel like you can talk to me, Keith, even when it seems like we’re on two completely different pages.”

Keith’s chest tightened with emotion and his lungs felt heavy again, but this time, not with disease--just an overabundance of feeling. “Do you…remember anything?” he asked quietly, hesitantly, still not certain he wanted to hear the answer but knowing he needed to, no matter what it was or how it hurt him.

A weighty pause. “No,” Shiro admitted, staring down at their entwined hands, grip tightening. “I’m sorry. I don’t know why—maybe I was trying to forget after I weakened the bond or maybe I forgot and the bond weakened as a result. I don’t remember knowing anything about our soul bond before or during Kerberos. I wish I did. I wish I could at least explain what happened to weaken it or why I forgot about there ever being an ‘us’. _I’m so sorry, Keith_. This is all my fault.” Guilt radiated through the bond like a series of waves, drowning them both.

“Shiro, no,” Keith protested, shaking his head rapidly, his words coming louder and more confident as a realised that Shiro really believed he’d abandoned Keith. (Never mind that Keith had been having his own doubts about why Shiro had broken the bond since Shiro had returned from Kerberos.). “I remember when you cut off the bond, I could feel you leading up to it. You didn’t do it to be selfish or because you forgot about me. It happened right after you lost your arm. I collapsed in the desert in the middle of the afternoon and passed out from the pain.”

Shiro’s eyes cut up to Keith’s, filled with the same horror and guilt that was eminating through the soul bond. He continued, not letting the older male interrupt. He had to get this out all at once or it wouldn’t come out at all.

“You knew there was a high possibility you’d be experiencing that pain again and so you blocked the soul bond. I was angry and hurt and selfish—I wanted to be there for you, I didn’t want to be protected and you weren’t giving me a choice. You didn’t do it to be selfish, Shiro, I was the one being selfish—when you came back and you didn’t remember, I was so caught up in feeling sorry for myself that I didn’t think about why it’d probably be easier for you to forget about what, and who, you thought you’d never see again.”

 _He was in space, kidnapped by aliens and thought he’d never see me again_. Even back on Earth, there were cases of soulmates blocking off their soul bond. It had been a common occurrence during world wars—soldiers would cut off their soulmates to protect them from the pain of injury, torture and death. He’d known Shiro was that type, known why he was doing it as he was pushing Keith away. But seeing the look in Shiro’s eyes when Keith had finally, _finally_ gotten him back, the empty recognition— _Keith: cadet, pilot, good friend, and nothing more_ —had cut right down to all those times he’d doubted people’s intentions as a kid in the system—maybe he really didn’t want Keith to be there with him, to support him in such an intimate way, maybe he’d forgotten because Keith just wasn’t _good enough_ , because he was _forgettable_.

He didn’t know how to explain any of that to Shiro, didn’t even know if he _could_. “I’m sorry. I should have just said something,” he muttered, carefully avoiding Shiro’s eyes and the forgiveness and understanding he knew he’d see in them.

Shiro’s guilt didn’t fade. “I understand why you didn’t. I wish you would have just talked to me, especially when you found you it would kill you,”—a pause where he swallowed and brought his other hand up to lay on top their intertwined hands as if reassuring himself that Keith was there and that he was fine—“but it was me who cut off the bond in the first place, even if I thought it was the right choice at the time. I can’t forgive myself for forgetting you, though. Breaking off the bond is one thing but—”

“Shiro—”

Shiro shook his head and smiled. “Since I don’t remember anything and we can’t go back and change what happened…do you think we can start again? I can’t promise I’ll ever get my memories back but I don’t need my memories to know how I feel.” A small laugh. “You know, part of me wished you were my soul mate.”

_“You know what? Part of me wished you were my soul mate.”_

Keith snorted in amused nostalgia, blinking the dampness away from his eyes. Despite himself, he smiled. “You’ve said that before.”

Shiro blinked back at him for a moment before he laughed too. “Guess I’ll end up repeating things without knowing if we’re starting from the beginning.”

Shrugging, Keith relaxed back into the bed, breathing in deeply and enjoying the feeling of being connected again for the first time in a while. “I don’t mind.”

After all, it wouldn’t kill him to relive the beginning all over again, even if they were both a little different now.

**Author's Note:**

> This is my very first venture writing for the Voltron fandom. I'm sort of proud I actually finished it. How did I do? *bites nails anxiously*

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [Hurted soulbond](https://archiveofourown.org/works/15915738) by [Ashery24](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ashery24/pseuds/Ashery24)




End file.
